Numerous corrugated containers have been proposed over the years for confining and protecting heavy or bulky palletized loads. Wooden pallets are in widespread use in industrial or warehouse environments where they are stacked upon one another until use, and thereafter forcibly manipulated and moved about by powerful fork-lift trucks. During transit, these heavily laden pallets are routinely subjected to mechanical stresses and shocks as they are aggressively and sometimes carelessly moved about during typical loading and unloading operations. A variety of heavy duty, corrugated boxes have been designed strictly for pallet use. Many of these fold together and have a plurality of locking straps or flaps that interconnect with portions of the pallet. Most have a base that engages the pallet with an upright, generally tubular body that is polygonal in shape (octagonal and hexagonal configurations are the most common).
Many of the prior art large-capacity pallet boxes must be inverted before unfolding. Either the box must be handled by two workers, or one worker must push it against a wall or similar stationary object to force it to deploy. Typically, six to eight flaps must be manually aligned and interfitted with two or more major flaps on the bottom locking the device together. Once the main bottom flaps are locked, the box is turned over for use. Some boxes of this description are so flimsy that the mere act of flipping them over forces the box apart, necessitating re-assembly prior to loading. Pallet boxes are used in various food industries and may be filled with a thousand or more pounds of meat product such as chicken, beef, or pork.
Because of these heavy loads, the prior art pallet containers are also susceptible to bulging on all sides. The bulging often prevents the most economical packing of pallets and transport of the containers, which results in higher shipping costs. In some cases, the bulging can cause collapse of the container and result in spillage of the contents of the containers.
It would therefore be desirable to develop a pallet container that is durable, not susceptible to bulging, and can be easily deployed from a flat state by a single person without the need of special tools or equipment.